


Crash & Burn

by joufancyhuh



Series: The Heavens Will Fall [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, set during me1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 00:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16882617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joufancyhuh/pseuds/joufancyhuh
Summary: Love felt a lot like crashing.





	Crash & Burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YourLocalPriestess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourLocalPriestess/gifts).



> To my girl, @yourlocalpriestess, who requested the story behind how someone as renegade and uncomfortable with emotions as Blake ended up falling for someone as soft as Kaidan. Some of this dialogue will be repeated in the long fic, but that’s a ways away and this girl wanted something now. So I hope you enjoy it, because it was literally written for you. Also, the fact that I wrote this during the Month of Fanfiction, you are now the reason I’m behind. You suck, but I’m still glad we’re friends.

Love felt a lot like crashing.

Blake’s crashed a lot of shuttles in her day, so she knows what crashing feels like. It’s emergency lights and frantic beeping noises and “Mayday! MAYDAY!” called into the comm channel in the hope that someone can hear you and somehow help. It might be screaming or crying, depending on the passengers, and then the hard  _thump_ of hitting something solid. Something usually ends up on fire. It’s messy and the ship is never the same, even with repairs, and it’s a shit ton of paperwork.

Love felt exactly like that. If she wasn’t the only passenger on the shuttle, there would’ve been crying. Definitely a lot of screaming, into her pillow at night out of frustration.  _What the fuck did he want from her? What did he hope to get out of this?_

It hadn’t been hard to discern that he liked her, especially after his off-hand comment in front of Gunnery Chief Williams. “When you put it that way, there’s no reason they wouldn’t like you. I mean us! Humans! Ma’am.”

And she attempted to remedy the situation by calling him into her cabin. A distracted lieutenant did no one on the crew any good. Let him get it out of his system, and then work could continue as normal. And the Lieutenant wasn’t unattractive, so it wouldn’t be too bad.

“So are we going to fuck or what?”

And he got so flustered, his whole face tinting a deep shade of red. “Wh-What? Ma’am?”

She slowed down her words this time. “Are we going to fuck? Yes or no. I can see that I’m distracting you from the mission, so let’s get this done and over with.”

He shook his head and refused to meet her gaze, face still flushed. “I mean, I would like to. Eventually. But I’d also like to take you out, on dates. When we’re off mission.”

She crossed her arms and leaned back on her leg. “Huh. Well, that’s new.”

That single conversation stirred something in her. She tried again a month later, after Kaidan told her what seemed to be his whole life story. She called him back into her office.

“This is because I’m Commander Shepard, right? The Butcher of Torfan?”

“Ma’am?”

“Why you keep flirting with me. It’s because you want to know the legend? Something to brag about back at home?”

Face red again, just like last time. “I like being around you.”

She stared hard as he kept his eyes away from hers again. “Why?”

He shrugged, a hand lifting up to rub the back of his neck. “I kinda like…you? Ma’am.”

Confusion flickered across her features. “But you don’t want to fuck. At least not yet.”

She didn’t know his face could turn any more red than it was. It reminded her of the color of fresh tomatoes. “Fraternization is generally frowned upon by the Alliance.”

“And if those regs weren’t in place?”

“We’re still in the middle of a mission. Ma’am. But I would’ve taken you out the next time we hit port at the Citadel. If…you were interested.

She let her gaze linger on him a few minutes before leaning back against her desk. “You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”

What was it about Kaidan Alenko that dragged her to his side? She could feel that initial decline in her shuttle with that first conversation, and then the beeping started after that last one.  She headed straight into it. Did she ever cry  _Mayday_ , try to radio for help? Or did she accept her fate and stand by, eyes closed as she hit full-force into this emotion called love? The shuttle remained irreparable after the crash; she felt it throughout her body.

She felt herself begin to relax around him, doing her best to earn one of his smiles. She thought about what it might feel like to lean into him, to feel his breath across her lips. His laughter followed her into bed.

If he was a dick about it, she wouldn’t have crashed this hard. He never made comments about how she sought him out in the mess, or how she found herself by his side while he worked on the terminal bank. When she realized that she enjoyed being in his presence, she should’ve screamed Mayday. She should’ve bailed. Jumped ship. Her shuttle was on fire, black smoke pouring out the back.

She didn’t shoot the biotic terrorists. She was losing her edge. They held Chairman Burns in front of them, gun to his head. She could’ve taken them out in an instant, no hesitation, a bullet between each of their eyes before they even knew what happened. That was before.

Kaidan stood by her side, but she knew him. He didn’t even have to fucking say anything because she already knew what he had to say. He would say to save them, and she fucking did. She reasoned with them, for him, and the worst thing, he knew.

He thanked her back on the Normandy, and he offered her one of those smiles that made her heart race. That’s when she felt it. She crashed full force into him before she even realized she was falling out of the sky.

_Fuck. I love him or some shit._

She tried not to think of a future with him. She tried not to think past the moment, the way she lived her life before him. She failed, instead picturing their date out on the Citadel, holding hands with him, kissing him at the end of it. Falling asleep with him on the couch after a long vid. Eating take-out at the dinner table, their dinner table.

She was the one who needed to get him out of her system. He liked her, but this emotion, it went well beyond like. How did he feel about her? Did he still like her, or did she scare him off?

What did one do with feelings like these?

Stupid. They should’ve just fucked. This wouldn’t happen otherwise, and her shuttle would still fly.

But she let the bad feeling in, the one called hope, and it took her over as she pictured what would happen next for them after Saren’s defeat.

And then Virmire happened. And she wanted to fly away, but her shuttle was already destroyed, still wreckage across his embankment. The fire from the engine grew until it engulfed the rest of the debris, her along with it. And they burned together, because there was no coming back from Virmire. It was too late.


End file.
